*** XMG Apex 15 with Ryzen 3950X / Clevo NH58AF1 Owner's Lounge ***

I ordered from laptopparts4less.
Only the CD was included.
I got all my drivers from the XMG support download page, but that didnt include the apps you mentioned either, sadly

Btw i need to mention this specifically... how pointless is it to ship drivers on a CD for a notebook that has no CD drive in an age where everything for PCs gets distributed digitally?
Its not like a cheapo 1gb USB stick would cost OEMs even a dollar if they buy in bulk.

 

Actually the sound fix didnt work. Ive done some other "fixes" with regedit etc that didnt work either. All these fixes might mess each other up now so that driver might still work, have to remove the other fixes from regedit to see.

 

Is Windows reinstalling the official driver through Windows Update? I had to block that.

 

Mine never installed any audio driver at all from Windows update wierdly enough. Only had High definition audio driver(or similar, generic driver). Tried updating thru windows update and search for updated driver online thru device manager etc but wouldnt get any.

Any idea what this is?



In obsidian driver updater ive installed everything, and cant see anything on clevos site that id be missing.. no idea what these are?


Edit2: Double checked if windows update replaced driver, nah its the one you shared, same version. Still crackling sound I installed the creative software shared in this thread as well, install worked well but i cant find any creative software.. Weird soundcard..

Here are the hardware IDs for above missing drivers:

PCI\VEN_1022&DEV_148A&REV_00
PCI\VEN_1022&DEV_1485&SUBSYS_50F01558&REV_00
PCI\VEN_1022&DEV_1486&SUBSYS_50F01558&REV_00
ACPI\VEN_CLV&DEV_0003

Seems like part of the AMD chipset drivers are missing? ACPI, and pci express controller?

Maybe LTSC is a no go with this laptop for now.. Dunno how to fix this. Tried to install chipset drivers etc from clevos site but no change.(I have already installed them thru obsidian but thought obsidian might have missed something.. dunno.)

 

In my testing with just Clevo control running auto fans and the Ryzen power plan during 40+ min rounds of conquest in BFV and COD WZ I would see no more than upper 70s on CPU(Carbonaut) and GPU(Kryonaut).
Today I removed the Kryonaut and applied the IC Graphite Pad to the GPU and earlier I was idling in the upper 40s on both CPU and GPU.
In the middle of recovering from a borked install, will get screens and do more testing in the days to come.

 

I listen through A Focusrite Scarlett Solo Gen 3 mainly 192khz/24bit... when using the onboard codec I normally have my ATx30 plugged in or one of my many sets of BT buds. all in all its been decent.
If I'm listening through the speakers Linus sounds like his normal naisly self!

 

I seriously doubt it has anything to do with LTSC. It probably is a driver issue, or there is a hardware defect of some kind. I would reach out to Obsidian. It's brand new and should be flawless.

 

Most likely because latest LTSC version lack driver support for newest AMD hardware. But Intel is supported through 10th gen chips.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/windows-processor-requirements

Silicon support: Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC will support the currently released processors and chipsets at the time of release of the LTSC. When choosing to utilize the LTSC, you must factor hardware into your decision, making sure you have a long-term supply of devices and service components for the life of your expected usage of the device.

New peripheral support: Because the API and driver support models are not changing, the LTSC release you deploy may not support new hardware or peripherals that you need to use in your organization.
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com...-is-it-and-when-should-it-be-used/ba-p/293181

 

Enterprise is great, but i would definitely go with a regular Enterprise or Enterprise-EDU version.
You can get keys either from work, your school/university or you can buy them very cheaply on sites like eBay.

You can completely disable Telemetry in Enterprise, so its worth getting this over any other version, but the longterm-service versions are not meant for use by regular people.

 

And, the fact that they are "not meant for use by regular people" is precisely why regular people should use an LTSB or LTSC version whenever it is possible. I'd still be using LTSB except for the fact that it doesn't support my RTX GPUs. (Windows 7 does, LOL.) LTSB (1607) was a better product.

Nobody benefits from consumers using newer versions of Windows 10 other than Micro$lop and they do not deserve to benefit. What they make for regular people is trash. The Enterprise and Pro consumer versions of Windoze 10 are totally rubbish, overflowing with garbage, and if you strip out all of the feces you easily end up with a broken OS. You're better off not buying any new hardware that requires newer than 1809, and/or sticking with Windows 7.

 

@Mr. Fox Your opinion, you are entitled to that, but you must surely be aware that people are getting this notebook for gaming, right?
Regular old Windows is simply the standard for gaming, like it or not.
Newest version, newest drivers etc. are required.
Anything else leads to compatibility-issues.

 

Of course. We are all entitled to have an opinion. Unfortunately, that right is being taken away from us little by little because we have so foolishly allowed that to happen. The comment about regular old Windows being required is an artificial fabrication, and a carefully crafted scenario, that is typically only accurate if you are using XBOX UWP trash games and titles produced by the Kool-Aid drinking game developers that aspire to be part of the machine. The more people they can convince that to be true, the more it will be. We all get to live with whatever crap the lowest common denominators in the majority are willing to put up with.

Most Steam, Origin, Epic, Uplay, Battle.net and GOG game titles (with few exceptions) run fine--often better--on Windows 7 and all older versions of Windows 10. And, the vast majority of games run fantastic using older drivers. For those that do not, there is still current Windows 7 GeForce driver support. The real problem is too many people are willing to prostitute themselves for the "privilege" of playing games where only digi-Nazis call the shots. Hopefully, there will soon come a day when gamer kids start to grow up and refuse to cooperate. Probably not, due to ignorance and lack of intestinal fortitude. Some of them are the same sad sheeple that believe they need to stay locked up at home and wear masks because they think the people they have given permission to play self-anointed god and be in charge love them and know what's best for them. The same underlying issue, (compliant sheeple consuming a filtered and sanitized social agenda,) just a manifestation in the context of different problem.

 

Just experimented a bit with my RTX 2070 refresh on this notebook.
This thing overclocks like a champ.
It boosts to over 1ghz and it boosts like a champ. It just keeps going.

Now, granted, i dont want something to produce this much heat in my notebook, but i think the refresh cards are going to be bonkers for undervolting!

Been playing around with that this afternoon.

 

A small tip; I once had to update usb drivers to stop crackling.

 

What's the Vram like?

 

did you update the usb drivers through the device manager? mine said they were up to date.

edit- rift s works now

 

Schenker XMG Apex 15: A love-hate situation notebookcheck.net


The XMG Apex 15 from Schenker Technologies is a notebook of extremes. On the one hand, it offers excellent performance thanks to its desktop processor. On the other, the cooling system can hardly keep up with this eager hardware - which becomes a very audible problem.

And we talk about the 65-Watt Ryzen 9 3900. Not the more power hungry 3950X

 

Why is there a link to the review of a 2014 Clevo at the bottom. Does anyone proofread these articles?

 

Probably linked to show "Apart from the fact that the barebone manufacturer Clevo is generally known for their lax approach when it comes to fan control" Aka nothing have changed with Xmg Apex 15


System Noise

Loud, louder, Clevo. This motto has been true for the barebones giant for years.

"The K73-4N is extremely audible during load. Up to 49 dB(A) in 3DMark 06, and a maximum of 52 dB(A) in the stress test are steep even for a gaming laptop. Other Clevo barebones, such as the W230SS, P150SM or P177SM(-A), do an equally poor job in these situations. There is no comparison with the Asus G750JH, which does not get unpleasantly loud even under extreme load. Connecting a headset or listening to music on the side is recommendable depending on the computer game genre."

 

The GPU is BGA filth, LOL. What's wrong with the retards that build this disposable garbage? There's no way in hell having a desktop CPU can even remotely make that a forgivable sin. Clevo knows damn good and well that the GPU will be the first thing that dies and the first thing anyone wants to upgrade. They have premeditated the financial molestation of every person that buys one of these throw-away pieces of crap. Clevo has stooped to the level of Alienware and MSI with their deplorable idiocy.

Schenker XMG Apex 15 (Clevo NH57AF1) Laptop Review: Extremely fast, extremely loud

 

Most likely the cheapo 15 inch and not the replacement for P75xxx. If not... They just killed own 15 inch model from being an option for notebook enthusiasts.

 

Haven't overclocked that, but then again, it would hardly produce much more heat, now would it?
I guess i could lower the voltage and run the GPU at 1600mhz, while i overclock the memory.

EDIT:
The review is absolutely correct. This notebook is extremely loud at default settings, but changing things even a little bit can improve things dramatically and you dont even have to give up that much performance!

I am running my 3700x at a fixed speed of 3.6ghz across all cores @ 0.925v and my RTX 2070 refresh is capped at 1600mhz@850mv.

I tuned my fancurves to keep my CPU/GPU between 70C and 80C to minimize fan-noise.
Its very quiet now, even under load. A BIOS fix for those strange temperature-spikes would still be great!

I am using Coolermaster Mastergel Maker. Kryonaut doesnt do to well with temps over 80C.

 

The sad truth is that in the current generation of laptops the Clevo X170 is the only confirmed option that offers CPU and GPU modularity in a format that at least in theory is non-proprietary.

Two generations ago we had two (rather exotic) modular chassis from MSI and three from Clevo,, maybe we'll get more choices again when Ampere is out.

 

MSI has been BGA since 2013/14. They killed own brand after Haswell.

 

I don't want an AMD Ryzen CPU because they are lousy at overclocking, but it's really sad they had to ruin this option with a BGA GPU for the people that would want a Ryzen desktop CPU. That it is limited to a BGA RTX 2070 with no option for 2080 is even sadder.

 

Are you forgetting the MSI 16L13 15" and rater rare "Tornado F7W 17" variant ( I Can't member the MSI Name)?

Those were both 2018 Models

 

Not quite, they had the WT75 that was also sold as the Eurocom Tornado F7. It could take a 9900k and GTX-cards up to 1070 or Quadros up to P5200.
I think it had a number of bios issues that prevented it from having the ultimate performance and it could not take the GTX-1080 but I liked the design.

The Eurocom Tornado F5 / MSI 16l13 was also a very good 15" solution and it came to market at the end of 2016 with Kaby Lake processors - the good old days where we only had 4-core CPU's in laptops

I just checked on the Eurocom site and they both are still sold but the Tornado F7 is hideously expensive even in the cheapest version.

 

For the rare user who really needs 12+ cores it would have been a very nice solution to have this in a more high end chassis but as they said before they do see that as a test release and if sales are good they will consider to go on to bigger and better things.

You got to question their logic as somebody who goes all out for a 16 core top of the line CPU will probably not like to be annoyed by a small chassis with inferior cooling capability so I am not sure what sales will tell them about their chances in that part of the market.

As for the RTX-2070 it does not really seem realistic to put an RTX-2080 in there, the 2070 is probably adequate given the capabilities of the chassis and I would rather like to see an MXM GPU in something more capable.

 

I know about those models. But they wasn't sold or put up in MSI's webpage portfolio if I remember correctly. At least wasn't the smaller MSI 16L13 15" (Whitebook barbones) in there. The rest of what MSI offereed has been pure Jokebooks since Haswell era. The MSI 16L13 15" was more branded as gaming book while the 17 inch as a workstation with no official support for the best gaming card from Nvidia.

 

Did XMG release a BIOS update already or are they just working on one?

 

You're right about that - once they have a chassis with real potential (WT75) they cripple it with a subpar bios and inability to take the biggest Nvidia card, not to mention lack of upgradability to the next generation of graphics cards.

It is as if they went out of their way to not have to sell it to gamers

 

All brands should offer a flagship. And I don't talk about yet a new Joke wrapped into nice words. Everything goes the wrong way nowadays. Only being offered a burning book from Dell and a single flagship from Clevo ain't healthy. Neither for the ODMs or the high performance enthusiasts.

 

I have that one, but with the 7700 HQ variant of the processor. In fact I was waiting to upgrade it to a better processor 3700k, ram and 2070+ gpu one like the one from Clevo, but I'm dubious... Waiting for some more feedback.

 

It would be great if every big brand had at least one big modular gaming / DTR chassis with exchangable GPU modules that can be bought like regular graphics cards. Imagine awaiting the latest entries from not only Clevo but also Asus, Acer, MSI, HP, Lenovo and Dell/Alienware.

 

The cooling system does ok with the 3950X set to [email protected]. The static voltage fixes the idle temp fluctuations. Notebookcheck will not talk about undervolting (or third-party utilities) in their reviews. It is all just out of box experience to be fair.

 

thats strange.
3700x here at 0.925v.
i still get random spikes.

 

Wow, so you really got it! How do you like it compared to the Dell?

 

Thank you for that great write up! How did you manage to adjust the levels of the audio after installing the 8746.1 driver? I have that driver installed now and it fixed the broken audio but I can't seem to find any detail controls anywhere, the previous Sound Blaster Cinema UWP app that was installed with the drivers doesn't seem to work with 8746.1. Did you manage to find another application that gives some additional control?

 

clevo germany told me there may be a bios update next week. AMD has said no official support on b450 for ryzen 4000. think we will still get the bios update for compatibility?

 

No sorry, I was just generally speaking.
Drop outs and crackling can have many causes. From my experience I had:
Wrong audio drivers
Wrong latency settings
Old vga/usb/monitor/pci/chipsetdrivers
Wifi and network issues
Grounding issues
Too much powerdraw from usb devices
Windows not up to date
Cpu not powerfull enough
Windows not in performance mode
Usb auto power down
Forgetting the obvious


....so much time wasted....

 

What size is the bios in this, 128 or 256Mb? If it's the latter I see no reason someone couldn't eventually update for compatibility with the 4000 series. From what I read, the reason for that blanket statement about no compatibility had to do with some 450/470 board having 128Mb limitation and the bios for 4000 compatibility requiring the larger size.

 

sounds rough. I'm happy with this laptop for now. I will be really angry if we don't get the bios update though. supposedly it's due to the memory size on the mobo being the issue.

 

128Mb, I've already abandoned hope to fit a 4000 series processor outside of Renoir.

 

Can't they just make another bios with the other chips? just leave out 1000 and 2000 series processors.

 

They could but it doesn't give them ANY financial incentive so I don't expect it to happen unless AMD bows to the people.

 

Don’t get me wrong, this was not with this laptop but with different pc’s and laptops lol
I dealt with these issues over the last 25 years and it can be frustrating to find the solution.

 

Very different machines, pretty difficult to compare them. The Clevo is still very new and will get better as issues are addressed. It offers lots of CPU and decent GPU performance for a great price. It is certainly a good option for a gaming notebook if battery life is not a concern.

 

Honestly what they could do is offer 2 bios : 1 Zen 2 and down. 2: Zen 2 and 3 then EOL the socket after Zen 3/+ or whatever.

 

Yep, i thought the exact same thing.
Apparently they held back big feature-upgrades just so they could stay with AM4.
I really dont know what i think about that.
Great for upgradeability, sure, but not great for enthusiasts who are willing to pay for that new platform and its new features.

but... to stick with AM4 as the platform and THEN only offer the new CPUs for the newest AM4 boards means they could have just as easily launched AM5. That way at least we would have gotten those mysterious features that AM4 now lacks.

Literally the worst of both worlds.

 

Indeed difficult to compare but I always found the build quality of the smaller Clevo cases rather disappointing and the Dell seems to be built very well so for me that would be hard. But not everybody is like that I take it that you also like something new to play with from time to time!